So - here's the background. I have a 1975 180B SSS that was heavily modified years ago and I'm in the process of making it working again after many years in storage. The car is on 14" wheels and the penny recently dropped that if I want to replace the 'vintage' Yokohama A008s currently on it with something with modern and good, I'll almost certainly need to buy some bigger wheels. I am really liking Watanabe Minilite look-alikes in 16".

The question is: at what point do wheels look ridiculously oversized on a 70's car? Is 16" going to look silly? Can I get away with 17" wheels? What I want to avoid is where the car looks like its on stilts or wearing clown shoes.

That all comes down to personal preference. In my opinion, anything larger than 15s on a 1600, 180B or 200B look too big. That's not to say that there wouldn't be some exceptions, but that's just my opinion. But you need to select the wheel size for your car that you think looks good. Some people will happily run 19s on their Datsun because that's what they think look good.

Based on what I have read on here, 17s on a 1600 make it drive terribly, in comparison to a smaller wheel, due to the very low profile tyre. So you should factor that in also before making a decision. Probably the best thing is to find some pictures of 180Bs on Google with different sized wheels and see what you think.

I generally hate big wheels on older cars. Not for the aesthetics mind you, but the simple fact that older cars have much less sophisticated suspension and chassis engineering and the bigger tyre sidewalls were taken into account when tuning them. Bigger rims exacerbate this with a much harsher ride and less engagement on the road. Unless you are going to completely update all the suspension with tunable parts and lots of different settings I'd avoid it

I would suggest 15" as a maximum. You can use a lot of genuine Nissan alloys in that size and most brake upgrades will fit inside that type of wheel. I think in S.A you are legally limited to a +2 size rim which for my P510 is 15".

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